Lee Terry: “I yield myself as much time as I may consume. A couple of points just so we get the total picture here. We consume, in…”

“I yield myself as much time as I may consume. A couple of points just so we get the total picture here. We consume, in America, about 18 million barrels of oil per day. That's what we consume domestically. We've reduced that from 20 a couple of years ago. Now, currently, when we add or just focus on OPEC oil countries, we're importing, daily, about 4.3 million of that 18 million that we need from OPEC countries--Saudi Arabia, Venezuela--and so building this pipeline, about 800,000 barrels, is about enough to offset the heavy crude from Venezuela. Even with this pipeline running at its maximum, we will still need to import from OPEC-level countries. So the reality is that the numbers will dictate that we have a long way to go before we're flush in oil where we could be energy independent, not dependent on OPEC. That's one of our goals here in this legislation, is to be free of OPEC oil; keep it in North America. Now, he also mentioned, the gentleman from New Jersey, a good friend and classmate of mine, that a representative, high-level representative from TransCanada said no, we're not going to guarantee that it all won't be exported. Well, let's put it in context. There are people who are extracting the oil out of the ground. They contract with TransCanada to transport that to the customer that will have control over it and refine it. So the common carrier in the middle has no control over the contract between the producer and the refiner. That's why he said no.…”